Sell your old mobile phone and gadgets
Make money when you upgrade your mobile phone and gadgets. In this article I reveal how I just made some money from a 5 year old phone and how you can too.
Cash in your frequent flyer award points
In September 2001 I lost over 100,000 frequent flyer points when Ansett Australia collapsed. I had been accumulating reward points with the intent of funding an overseas flight. To that end I’d even paid for a domestic flight rather than use some of my points. What a waste! Back then it was a common complaint [...]
Buying a house with friends or family
This article was originally published in the LawCentral Bulletin 390 on 7th November 2011 and is republished with permission of the author, Brett Davies. Question Hi Brett. I’m a recent university graduate. I’ve been lucky enough to land a graduate job earning a decent wage. The problem is, with rents so high and house prices [...]
Women: a great little reminder from a hot guy
And after you’ve finished checking your breasts check if you have protection from the financial consequences of a serious illness like breast cancer. The key tool is trauma insurance, which pays you a lump sum on diagnosis. You can use the lump sum to: Help fund out-of-pocket costs for medical treatment Give your partner time off [...]
How compound interest works
MoneySmart, the financial literacy website produced by Australian Government regulator ASIC have produced this brief video to explain how compound interest works. Compound interest is an essential base concept to understand before investing. So if you don’t understand it then I recommend you spend one minute watching this video. Then please share in the comments [...]
National Identity Fraud Awareness Week
This week is National Identity Fraud Awareness Week. Last year I wrote a detailed article on how to protect yourself from identity theft. The article also shares the story of how my sister was defrauded of $2,000. This year the Australian Federal Police have published an excellent survey to test how well you protect yourself against identity [...]
Tunnel vision cost $5,000 a year
A couple of months ago I met Kate at a 40th birthday party. Kate had tunnel vision – metaphorically speaking – and her tunnel vision was costing her abut $5,000 by her own estimate. The problem was, Kate was blissfully ignorant to her condition. That was, until she met me.
What to do if massive world change is coming
“Perhaps the developed world is about to experience massive structural change”, mused my mate as we discussed the global financial situation recently.
In truth no-one knows what will happen.
The great news is that the actions which prepare you to survive a massive change also position you to thrive if instead a boom arrives. So irrespective of your personal forecast it is worth implementing these suggestions.
Why are only 5% of Aussies millionaires?
“One day I want to be a millionaire!” I recall that being an often expressed goal around the traps twenty years ago. Back then the median gross annual income was just $17,056* so the millionaire goal was quite a stretch. It was also before the explosion of free information on the internet. Since then there’s [...]
How much super you need to fund a comfy lifestyle
The biannual update of the ASFA Retirement Standard has just been issued showing that to live a comfortable lifestyle in retirement a couple would spend around $55,000 per year. That’s a $1,000 per year increase compared to the December 2010 study. Perhaps the most interesting aspect of this release are the projections of how much [...]
Ruth Ostrow’s tip on how to discover what matters
I believe financial planning is about acting purposefully to ensure you have enough money for what matters most to you. To help you achieve that outcome one key practice I recommend is to ”save for the significant and minimise the insignificant” Obviously you first need to know and identify what life experiences are significant for you. In Ruth [...]
A great 21st birthday gift
My partner and I would like to buy shares for my son’s birthday. He will turn 21 on 9 November and we want to buy him something that he will have for a very long time. Eventually we came up with the idea of starting him off with his own share portfolio, but we have absolutely no idea how to go about this. We also don’t know if it is possible and whether it is a viable, long-term plan. We’d appreciate some advice…
With math this bad would you trust this adviser?
Yesterday I received an e-mail message from financial services firm [name removed*] pre-promoting a “big event” they’re holding in October. The following is part of their big sell: Too right that’s not pretty reading. Mr [name removed*] has used simple math of dividing $1 million by $6,464.10 to come up with “154.7 years to become [...]
Budgeting tip: Medical costs
You don’t know when you’re going to be sick and need to see the doctor. That makes it tricky to include an allowance for medical expenses in your budget. Medical expenses are included under the category of “irregular expenses” in my budgeting approach. You save a regular amount each pay period into a dedicated savings [...]
Twitter
Youtube
Matt Hern Financial Planning
RSS
Facebook
Digg
GooglePlus
Retirement lifestyle costs quick estimator
By Matt Hern on November 15, 2011
The ASFA Retirement Standard for the September 2011 quarter has just been released and reveals that “in general, a couple looking to achieve a comfortable retirement needs to spend $55,316 a year, while those seeking a ‘modest’ retirement lifestyle need to spend $31,767 a year.” One of the most useful elements of this quarter’s update [...]
Category: Planning